It has been one year since ResearchGATE.net was launched, and the ResearchGATE team would like to extend its gratitude to all the research scientists who have joined the community.  You have made ResearchGATE's first year astoundingly successful, and year two promises to be even more exciting.

ResearchGATE's ambition is to promote communication among scientists across the globe.   The professional goals of research scientists demand a commensurately professional online network that is tailored to the needs of serious research.  With a rich set of communication tools to enhance professional networking, ResearchGATE's platform has already attracted scientists from over 190 countries.

In the upcoming year, we will work tirelessly to guarantee that scientists on ResearchGATE will derive as much value as possible from their participation in the network.  Our goal remains to reduce research redundancy and increase efficiency for all the scientists we are privileged to count as members of our community.

The ResearchGATE Team

We've added a new feature to the group creation process called "Secure Group".  Data within groups on ResearchGATE has always been secure, but this feature makes it easier for a group to be certain that only specific people can access group data.

If you select this option, your new group will have the following properties:

1.) Only administrators can invite new members to the group

2.) Only group members can access data such as discussions, files, appointments

3.) The group name is not displayed in any member's group list

4.) The group is not indexed under "Browse Groups" and cannot be found within ResearchGATE

Some ResearchGATE users have complained that they have received messages that are not relevant to science or research.

In our feedback forum, we discussed with ResearchGATE users how we might be able to offer more tools for reporting this type of unwanted SPAM.

We have now added a "Report Message" function to your Inbox.

Please contact us immediately if you think someone is misusing ResearchGATE.

In this troubled time of economic turmoil, I am sure many scientists are glad to see the US government continuing to increase funding for research in the US. President Barack Obama has stated he wants the research and development spending to rise to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). "This represents the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history," Obama remarked at a recent National Academy of Sciences general meeting.

With two-thirds of the money expected to come from the private sector, will the expected $46 Billion increase in funding be delivered without a hitch?  This money is on top of the $21 Billion boost in funding already announced in February as part of the economic stimulus package.

Even if there are delays in disbursement, it is quite a good omen indeed to see scientific research held in such high public regard.

Recently, a researcher in ResearchGATE approached us with a very nice idea. He claimed that having a lot of contacts and sorting them in complicated lists is rather cumbersome. He suggested that it would be much easier and more efficient to allow ResearchGATE members to "tag" their contacts.

We agreed with him wholeheartedly and implemented his idea as soon as we could!

Here's the new workflow:

Click on a contact and you will immediately see a new feature in the vcard: Tags!  Now you can enter any tag you wish for this researcher.

Whenever you visit your contact list you will have the opportunity to click on one of your tags and only the contacts you have designated will be displayed.

Please continue to share your helpful feedback with us!

We've added a helpful new feature that allows you to write a brief memo about each of your contacts.

This memo is only visible to you, and you can use it to note where you met a particular contact or to easily recall which lab a contact is working in.